Starwood CEO Touts Resiliency of Extended Stay Hotels During Pandemic
Skift Take
Extended stay hotels may be strong performers for Starwood Property Trust and Barry Sternlicht, but it may be years before the investment firm looks to deploy capital further into other hospitality sectors.
During his tenure at Starwood Hotels & Resorts, billionaire investor Barry Sternlicht was known for building up luxury brands like W Hotels. But investments in recent years and into a global pandemic show the extended stay sector has become Sternlicht’s sweet spot.
Starwood Property Trust, the real estate investment firm where Sternlicht serves as CEO, has a chain of extended stay hotels running at 85 percent average occupancy rates during the coronavirus crisis, he said Wednesday during an investor call. That performance is well above the U.S. hotel industry average of 48 percent, according to STR.
But strong performance in one hotel sector doesn’t mean Sternlicht and the Starwood Trust team are doubling down on the industry as a whole.
“The two areas where demand isn’t going to return to levels it was anytime pre-Covid are hotels an
